Digital Technology

Digital Technology is an umbrella term for computer-based products and solutions. Considering that nearly everything designed and developed these days uses computers, it is a rather vague term. Digital technology may refer to using new algorithms or applications to solve a problem even if computers were used to develop solutions in the past.

Digital technology is used to describe microprocessor based equipment, the software programs (applications) that run on them, ancillary devices that connect to them (printers, displays, sensors), and the communication networks that move information between them (Ethernet, the Internet, telephone networks, and cellular and other wireless communication technologies). Microprocessors are the so-called “computer on a chip” – a powerful computing device that can be the size of a fingernail, or smaller.

Application Categories of Digital Technology

Digital Technology is often subdivided into several major application categories:

• Information Technology (IT) represents the equipment and services that process, transform, move, store, convert, and present information (stored as 0s and 1s and translated by the technology to be useful)
• Communications technology (CT) transfers voice, video and data over wired and wireless networks from one point to individual or multiple destinations. Information and communication technology are often grouped together as ICT.
• Operational Technology (OT) refers to devices such as video cameras (e.g., police body and dash cameras) chemical process controllers (e.g., water and systems), sensors, meters and related technologies that enable human activities. They even include the latest innovation – drones that can take photos now, and in the future may deliver products. OT also encompasses the Internet of Things (IoT) (or as some call it, the Internet of Insecure Things because of its mostly limited security protections).